Earth is a planet born of fire.
For billions of years, volcanoes have helped create the world we know. From the continents to the air we breathe and even life itself, all have their origins in fire. These processes have created extraordinary...

Grab your mask and snorkel and come on an unforgettable adventure! Great Barrier Reef captures the natural beauty of the world’s largest living wonder and introduces us to the visionaries and citizen scientists who are helping us better understand this...

Join an immersive IMAX adventure to experience the life-saving superpowers and extraordinary bravery of some of the world's most amazing dogs. No stranger to superheroes himself, Chris Evans narrates this inspiring true story about remarkable (or is that...

The Fleet's newest exhibition, Pause|Play, is an invitation for the young and the young-at-heart to leave the digital world behind, hit pause on their busy lives and recapture the nostalgia of play. Science has shown that play has a number of cognitive,...

As Tim Gunn is fond of saying, “Make. It. Work!” And that’s the idea behind our Make-It Workshop, a creative and interactive workshop for innovators and other curious minds. We invite you to stop by Studio X (formerly Tinkering Studio) on Saturdays to...

Stay and play—and save!—until 10 p.m. on Friday nights this summer!
Bring the entire family to experience the Fleet at night! Enjoy extended evening hours at the Fleet in celebration of The Art of Summer in Balboa Park. Peruse Pause|Play late into...

Grownups! You get the science center all to yourself (no kids allowed!) to explore exhibits at a savings, enjoy an adult beverage and rock out to music on Saturday nights this summer.
Adult Recess provides your chance to take over the Fleet's...

The first Monday of every month, seniors 65 and better can enjoy the Science Center exhibits, a show in the Heikoff Giant Dome Theater and a lecture on the quietest day of the month for only $10! No coupons or additional discounts are accepted. The Fleet...

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Join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. or 8:15 p.m. for a tour of the solar system narrated by the Fleet’s astronomer. Journey through the cosmos with us as we explore a new topic each month.
For optimal viewing, each show is...

Join us on the second weekend of each month to investigate exciting science topics. Sessions will be filled with new challenges, hands-on activities and interaction with local scientists. Throughout the year, we will explore an array of fields including...

Things You Might Have Missed About the Philae Landing on Comet 67P

By David Harker, Associate Research Scientist, UCSD Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS)

On March 2, 2004, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Rosetta Mission. The goal for this mission was for the Rosetta spacecraft to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churymov–Gerasimenko, which was 280 million miles away from Earth. To put this into perspective, the Earth is about 93 million miles away from the Sun. So at the point of rendezvous, comet 67P was three times the distance away from the Earth as the Earth is from the Sun.

Rosetta went into orbit around comet 67P on September 10, 2014. It took ten years for Rosetta to reach the comet, traveling as far out as the orbital path of Jupiter! Here is a cool video of the path Rosetta took.

The Rosetta spacecraft deployed a small probe, Philae, which made history on November 12, 2014, by successfully landing on the surface of the comet.

Philae's landing onto comet 67P was not without its mishaps. It is thought that the initial landing was too soft to deploy the probes' harpoons, which would have fastened it to the surface. The tiny lander—about the size of a dishwasher—bounced twice before finally coming to a rest. The first bounce lasted close to an hour and took Philae a kilometer off the surface of the comet!

The escape velocity of comet 67P is only 1.1 mph. This is the velocity you would need to escape from the comet's gravity. Compare that with the Earth's escape velocity, which is 25,000 mph! You could quite literally leap off the comet.

When Philae finally did come to a rest, it ended up in an unfavorable orientation. The probe’s solar panels were only receiving a little more than an hour of sunlight during each 12-hour rotation of the comet. It was hoped that Philae would receive six to seven hours of sunlight every rotation of the comet, which would fuel the lander’s batteries and allow its activities to be carried out over three months. Instead, because of the limited sunlight, Philae was only able to operate for about 60 hours before its batteries depleted.

During those 60 hours, a wealth of scientific data was downlinked to Earth for analysis, such as information about the comet’s atmosphere and composition. As the mission continues and 67P approaches perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, scientists are hoping that the increased sunlight will awaken Philae and its mission can continue. Even without Philae, the main Rosetta spacecraft is still orbiting the comet and will continue to collect data to help us learn more about comet 67P and the nature of comets in our solar system.